This quilt made in 1936 was donated to an auction for the Clinic for Special Children in Strasburg in 1991, where it sold for $1,000. It was re-donated in 2019 for an auction for the Belleville clinic, where it sold for to a board member for $15,000. It will be displayed at Central Pennsylvania Clinic, A Medical Home for Special Children and Adults, in Belleville.

30 years after starting Strasburg clinic, Dr. Morton dedicates another in the Belleville area

The exterior of Central Pennsylvania Clinic, A Medical Home for Special Children & Adults in Belleville, Pennsylvania.

COURTESY OF PAUL MORTON

Part of the 6th annual auction to benefit the Central Pennsylvania Clinic in Belleville.

COURTESY OF PAUL MORTON

Patients, friends and families gather to hear the doctors at the dedication of Central Pennsylvania Clinic, A Medical Home for Special Children and Adults in Belleville.

COURTESY OF PAUL MORTON

This quilt made in 1936 was donated to an auction for the Clinic for Special Children in Strasburg in 1991, where it sold for $1,000. It was re-donated in 2019 for an auction for the Belleville clinic, where it sold for to a board member for $15,000. It will be displayed at Central Pennsylvania Clinic, A Medical Home for Special Children and Adults, in Belleville.

In his remarks at the clinic's dedication in mid-May, Holmes emphasized the urgent need for people to get vaccinated against diseases like measles, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus and flu to avoid what he terms "preventable family and individual tragedies," in light of ongoing measles outbreaks in parts of the United States.

He struck a similar tone in the clinic's latest newsletter, writing that there are not very effective treatments to reverse the kinds of problems those vaccine-preventable diseases can cause, "like heart malformations, deafness, blindness, and abnormal brain development and seizures."

He also mentioned that his mother spent most of her life not able to hear well, because of measles.

"Please do it now, for your family and your community," he wrote in the newsletter.

The new clinic's total cost is expected to be about $2.3 million, according to executive director Paul Morton, who is Holmes Morton's brother. So far, he said, more than $800,000 has been donated, and long-term financing from the Anabaptist Foundation will be repaid over 20 years from the clinic’s operating funds.

The Pennsylvania Department of Health does not post school-specific numbers publicly, but at LNP’s request provided four years of data on all local reporting classes — only kindergarten and seventh grade are tracked — that had at least 20 students.